eyes sewn shut, but not blind
by Grilled Cheesby
Summary: There must be something wrong with him, surely. This darkness that rises when he sees his mother's smile and his father's stern look. The angry snarl that threatens to fall from his lips at Itachi's indulgent gaze. Where Sasuke once craved their love and attention, all he feels now is disdain and hatred. bad thing happen bingo fic #7


**Summary:** _There must be something wrong with him, surely. This darkness that rises when he sees his mother's smile and his father's stern look. The angry snarl that threatens to fall from his lips at Itachi's indulgent gaze. Where Sasuke once craved their love and attention, all he feels now is disdain and hatred._

**there is implied cannibalism in this story, though it is never in detail, nor is it anything other than vaguely implied. **

**sasuke is dark af and you've been warned.**

**#7 fic for Bad Things Happen Bingo card. prompt was disproportionate retribution.**

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**eyes sewn shut, but not blind**

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Sasuke thinks that perhaps he should feel guilty. He has been given this chance, this wonderful opportunity, to change things for the better. He has ended up smack dab in the middle of the era for change. He is but a child, and yet he could tell his parents the truth. They might not believe him, not trust his warnings as valid, but they would be put on guard. They would wonder how he knew, who had spilled their plans to such a young child. Perhaps they would approach the topic during a clan meeting, say that someone knows and is watching them. The entire plan to take the village could even be avoided by simply saying something; by speaking up.

Instead, Sasuke keeps the future to himself, eyes gleaming.

He doesn't know exactly where his opinion of the Uchiha clan changes. They are his, on a fundamental level. He grew up with their ghosts, with the idea of their existence constantly in the back of his mind. He doesn't know if the whispers that haunted him were real. There's no saying whether he was having a mental break or if there was something more supernatural leaking into his mind while he existed in his first life. Sasuke wanted revenge and something clung to that.

The second time, when he looks around and sees ghosts, he is struck by the surge of distaste he feels. Where once he was the only name to his destiny, there are now others. Civilian Uchiha roam the compound streets and active shinobi rush around, coming and going. Where once Sasuke held the entirety of the clan in his grasp, now he must share his name and his identity. He is the spare heir, overlooked by the masses in favor of his pacifist brother.

He doesn't like it.

There must be something wrong with him, surely. This darkness that rises when he sees his mother's smile and his father's stern look. The angry snarl that threatens to fall from his lips at Itachi's indulgent gaze. Where Sasuke once craved their love and attention, all he feels now is disdain and hatred.

He knows logically that this must be the curse that plagues the Uchiha so. He must have fallen so far that he can no longer find his way back to the light. This anger could be his own, or it could be orchestrated by any of the puppeteers behind the curtains.

It matters not.

Sasuke, with eyes wide and shiny and his head tilted just so, approaches a man on a late evening night. It is winter and even though it's only a few minutes past four, the sun has already set. The man is a familiar one to Sasuke, though he hasn't yet put his sights onto Sasuke. Not yet, but soon.

"Who are you?" Sasuke asks, all innocence and childhood nativity.

"I am Shimura Danzō," the man offers, his eye keen as he stares down at Sasuke's small form.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke," Sasuke replies just as seriously, his high pitched voice making the gravity of his intent soften. Danzō does not take him seriously, simply sees the potential that a young Uchiha offers. He does not yet know that Sasuke will be the key to the end of the Uchiha clan.

"It is getting late, young Uchiha," Danzō says, his voice as gentle as the harsh man can be. It is interesting listening to him speak, to hear the false kindness threaded through his words. He is trying, where in the future he made no such attempt. Sasuke wonders what made him drop his gruff facade for the more grizzled one in the future.

"Yes," Sasuke nods, agreeing to Danzō's words. He knows that they were meant to dismiss him, to make him feel like he should be running home, but Sasuke stays where he's at, eyes locked onto Danzō's face. "What happened to your eye?"

"It happened long ago," Danzō says, his voice not wavering in the slightest. There is no hint of deception, no attempt at being anything other than innocent of his crimes.

"Do you still have it?" Sasuke asks, his voice dipping down into a loud whisper. The lack of tact a child possesses suits him nicely. "I have a weird eye too."

Danzō's eyebrow raises, at first due to Sasuke's lack of manners and then at his odd addition. "A weird eye?"

"Yes," Sasuke shares, dropping the illusion he had carefully crafted over his left eye. His Rinnegan is fully powered after siphoning chakra to it for weeks, the tomoe present as he takes in the brief flash of disbelief on Danzō's face. "I hide it 'cuz it's funny. Do you hide a funny eye?"

The disturbed twist to Danzō's features leaves a zinging down Sasuke's spine, a dark cackle echoing somewhere from the depths of his psyche, but he doesn't voice it. He isn't here to drive Danzō away, after all. He's here to make Danzō _afraid_. Sasuke wants Danzō so concerned with the Uchiha that this time, not a single member will walk away from the massacre.

Sasuke won't fall, of course. No, he will be inexplicably absent during the destruction of the Uchiha clan. A masked nin, whispers will follow, an orange mask garnering attention as the owner slits the throats of every Uchiha they come across. The entire clan gone, people will whisper, except for_ him_. Uchiha Sasuke, they will whisper, the boy who escaped death.

When he is crying false tears, they will ask him what he saw.

"Nothing," Sasuke will sob, tears stinging at his eyes. "I didn't see anyone leave!"

Sasuke will cry out for his mother and father. Sasuke will scream for Itachi. Sasuke will leave tear tracks down his cheeks even as his eyes gleam with restrained glee.

When they ask him about his living arrangements, about whether or not he wants to stay on the compound, Sasuke asks for Shimura Danzō.

"The village elder?" a confused nurse will wonder, a frown on her face.

"I met him years ago," Sasuke will sniffle, lies falling off his tongue with ease. "My brother said I could trust him to take care of me if something where to happen."

His words are dark and they seem to disturb the nurse slightly, but she does what he asks, bringing a blank faced Danzō with her the next time she checks up on him. She leaves just as quickly, disquieted with the tension building in the room.

Sasuke drops the false masks, the fake mourning, and instead looks up at Danzō with feverish eyes and a cracked smirk. His genjutsu is gone and the tomoe in his Rinnegan spin of their own accord as Danzō's face flashes with fear. The old man has finally come to realize that the only Uchiha he should've killed was the one that survived.

"You never did tell me," Sasuke starts, voice cracking from the strain his throat has gone through at his false screams, "if you had a funny eye."

What happens next is not known to any but Sasuke, as by the time he screams, blood curdling, a group of medic nin run into his room, and they are greeted with the sight of a frightened Sasuke and an enraged Danzō.They see his stolen Sharingan and they work as a team to restrain him. Nowhere near enough to truly harm him, but Danzō isn't all there anymore, now is he?

Sasuke babbles on as a nurse comes to comfort him, a young man with kind eyes and soft hands. "He said he wanted my eyes!" Sasuke confesses with false dread, fear shining on his childish face. There's a dark ring of bruises forming around Sasuke's neck and they accompany the small scratch marks of nails along Danzō's face. The man is executed within a fortnight and that means that Sasuke is that much closer to being the single survivor of the Uchiha's legacy.

Kakashi will be next, he knows. He plans as he prunes the rosebush in the garden his mother has left behind. As an ANBU, an accident can be easily forced. Obito is out there, carrying around eyes that belong to Sasuke, so he will come soon after. Madara is dead, and as long as Obito is taken care of, Sasuke won't have to worry about him. Zetsu, of course, has already been taken care of. He is careful to not turn his back on the large green plant in the corner of his garden, calmly picking up a sticky piece of raw meant to throw it towards the plant. The meat flies and the plant opens, fathomless darkness staring out as the meat lands within its maw. The plant slams shut around the meat, a hissing sound following as the piece of beef is broken down.

Sasuke hums to himself as he makes his way inside his house, the options for dinner flashing across his mind. He hasn't had maguro no medama-ni in so long.

After all, he wouldn't want his stored food to go to waste.

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**maguro no medama-ni "stewed tuna eyeballs", though Sasuke very much is NOT using tuna in his recipes. .**

**the title is a paraphrased line from Something Wicked (That Way Went) by Vernian Process **


End file.
